http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060829/NEWS03/608290306/1026/NEWS10

Monsey adult home residents may have been threatened to vote Democrat

By SARAH NETTER

(Original publication: August 29, 2006)

MONSEY — Residents of an adult home say they were given a list of four Democratic candidates and told that if they didn't vote accordingly, their television privileges would be revoked.

Board of Elections inspectors, sent Friday to collect absentee ballots at the New Monsey Park Home for Adults, reported the residents' accusations of coercion to the board's commissioners.

The list, inspectors reported, came from New Monsey Park administrator [color="Red"]Yitzy Ullman, who vehemently denied the accusations.

Ullman said the facility distributed the list to all residents as a recommendation.

"They're coming up and saying, 'Who should we vote for?' " he said yesterday.

Ullman, who said he had been in the business for 10 years, called the accusations "disgraceful and insulting." But, he said, the candidates on the list had proved to be advocates for health rights and the mentally ill, among other interests of the home's residents.

Republican Board of Elections Commissioner Joan Silvestri said the inspectors also reported that some of the residents said money was involved in the threats, but "we don't know what it means."

On the list were Assembly candidate [color="red"]David Fried, county Legislature candidate [color="red"]Alden Wolfe and County Court judge candidates [color="red"]Charles Apotheker and Thomas Walsh [color="Blue"](token Goy), Silvestri and Democratic Board of Elections Commissioner Ann Marie Kelly said. All are Democrats.

"This is what campaigning is all about," Ullman said, noting that any political candidate who visits the home is welcome to leave literature up front where resident can read it.

And, he said, candidates not on the facility's list were allowed to collect petition signatures there.

Kelly and Silvestri said they took statements from the eight inspectors who visited the home Friday and have turned them over to the Rockland District Attorney's Office and the state Board of Elections.

Silvestri said election inspectors yesterday were accompanied by a Rockland Sheriff's Department employee to the Evergreen Court Retirement Residence, formerly Bader's, while they collected absentee ballots there.

Ullman, Silvestri said, has "interests" there.

Thomas Bloomingdale, president of the New Monsey Park residents council, said he knew nothing about threats against his fellow residents. About 250 people live there, he said.

Out of the 49 ballots delivered to the Monsey Park home Friday, none were for the Sept. 12 Democratic primary, Kelly said. One was a Republican ballot, and 48 were for the Independence Party primary.

Of the four candidates on the list given to residents, Kelly said, only Apotheker is running on the Independence Party line. All four candidates are participating in the Democratic primary.

"He slipped," Kelly said of Ullman. "He was not aware that these people, three of these particular people, were not going to be on the Independence ballot for September."

Fried, Wolfe and Apotheker said they had no knowledge of the facility's list or the accusations against Ullman when contacted yesterday by The Journal News. Walsh could not be reached for comment yesterday.

"Even though my name does not appear on the ballot," Fried said of the Independence Party primary, "I'm greatly concerned about any improprieties in the electoral process."

Apotheker said he was also surprised.

"I certainly had nothing to do with it," he said. "This is not something I would do or approve at all."

Wolfe agreed, noting that his campaign knew nothing of the New Monsey Park list.

"Any voter is free to vote for whoever they choose," he said.